Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
It is time now for our community connection right here on K one,
the one you trust, and it is being brought to you by Arnold Moore
Innee Camp Funeral Home, Wesley and Kiddie College, Get Real Ministries, Tall
Grass Motors. Oh boy, I tell you what. It's Michael Kohli in
the house. He's running for commissioner District two. How are you doing,
Michael, I'm doing well. It's been a long time since I've seen it.
Time. Yeah, you haven't been to any good forums lately, just
three in the last week. And the one you hosted last night or moderated
was fantastic. Really enjoyed that, Thank you very much. We had a
good time putting that together and I'm glad that it came off pretty well.
But we got to learn a lot about all of our candidates running for office
in these competitive races. Now you have a three way race for District two
and we got to meet with you and also your competit your challengers in this
race too. But once again, District two is Mike Booby's district. Tell
us pretty much geographically where this district is so it's a little bit of a
it's interesting. I mean, anyone could go to the county website and look
at it. But it starts north of Dewey around Highway ten and kind of
meanders through the east side of Dewey and then pops out, grabs a little
bit of Highway seventy five down to I believe, Minnesota, and then takes
that directly east to Bison, Bison all the way down to Adams Boulevard,
Adams all the way west to the Caney River, and then it follows the
Caney River basically down to about Road twenty nine hundred, follows a little creek,
goes over and picks up Road thirty nine to eighty, and then eventually
ends up around Road thirty one hundred and goes directly east to the county line.
So somebody wasn't good at drawing rectangles, really No, Maybe there was
Jerry Mandarin, I don't know. But it's it's it's it's a it's a
very large area, it is, and they try to break them all up
for equal population representation within the county. So but it has most of the
east side of Bartlesville in that district. Indeed, now I wouldn't pursuing this.
You had to educate yourself a little bit. How did you go about
to finding out what a commissioner does? That's a great question. The first
thing I did is I talked to one of our current county commissioners. I
asked him, what does the job entil I'm considering doing this and think I
would like to run. Oklahoma State has some great resources as well. They've
got a website where any any county commission in Oklahoma who's elected has to go
and take some courses, and their courses on budget process and managing people and
Open Meetings Act and that type of thing. But it has a whole resource
there, and so I went and started reading what is it? Yeah,
what does a county commissioner do? What do we do? And you know
we've talked about that at all of the forums. You know, what does
a county commissioner do? If you were to go to let Oklahoma State website
and read a little bit about it, it says most people think of roads
and bridges when they think of a county commissioner. They do, and while
that is part of what they do, they are the chief administrators, They
are the chief managers of everything that happens in the county from in Washington County
based on the budget board. Other counties, the commissioners set the budget.
Not so in Washington County. We have a in my opinion, a much
better process with the budget board. But that budget board funds the DA's office.
That budget board funds the Sheriff's office, it funds the fair grounds,
it funds the court, it funds everything that happens in the county, which
does include roads and bridges. So it's really as it's a financial management,
it's a people leadership. It's a service position, and so I'm excited about
the opportunity to serve. And I think I have some unique qualifications that set
me apart in Michael Colelisle, let's go into a few of those. You've
had to quite a resume there. Well, yeah, it's been. As
I get older, I go, man, there's a lot that I've done,
but just getting older, I guess, is what it is. Seventeen
years I spent in the church world. And if you've gone to any of
the forums before or talked to me at SunFest or at your door, you've
heard me say this that I spent seventeen years in the church world, bachelor's
and master's degree in religion. So I've served anywhere from a youth pastor to
a music pastor, to working an administrative office for the Wesleyan Church, or
even time at Oklahoma Western University where campus pastor there and served teaching some classes
in the School of Religion. There was very blessed and fortunate to transition to
the corporate world and then have spent thirteen years in oil and gas and banking.
Where it's been transportation accounting, you know, the accounting for the movements
with truck rail, polar tankers, pipeline moving product internal audit, vendor management
for Phillip sixty six. So it's a vast background that I think really does
create some unique skill set for me. People management, just working with people,
being able to get along serve people. And then that financial side.
You know, I've gained so much experience in the financial area as far as
creating budgets, maintaining budgets. Internal audit taught me to ask some really good
questions and look at some really important things when it comes to processes, procedures,
and the financial side. On the fund side of life. On the
fund side of life. I understand that you may be qualified not only to
marry people, but sing at their wedding. I don't know. I don't
know about Yes, definitely qualified, still ordained, could perform a wedding.
So you got a little you got a little band that's really good. I
like to play music, and my guys that I played with we are actually
playing in town Friday night here, so nice. I love you know,
music events and funer Oh, I love it. That's a I put on
some great shows by myself in my living room with just me and the guitar,
singing for hours, and it's pretty fantastic. You guys, you would
if you saw it, You man, that guy's good. That guy's great.
You gotta get him signed up. Michael kla You know, we've been
kind of serious about that to that and just kind of break it up because,
let's face it, you've been under the microscope, as anybody would be
who's running for office, because people really want to see who they're hiring.
And this is probably the most stranduous, I guess, or the most unique
job vetting process, which is called an election and being vetted by the voters
at different times different forums and you get together what have you, and then
just plain little people walking up to you on the street and saying, why
do you want to be a commissioner? Yeah, and getting asked probably some
interesting questions and maybe some of that are out of this world, definitely asked
questions that you know that a county commissioner could do nothing about. But I
think people when you're running for an office, they immediately look at it as
oh, you're now going to be a politician and you now have clout and
magic powers. Yeah, you know you can. You can move the needle
on something that is just fantastical and that it's out there, but you know
it would it would take a lot of work for Congressman Burkeen or some or
link for to move the needle on some of these things, but we're asked
about them. I know that there were some questions that I received well meeting
people, and God bless, I'm sure ninety five percent of the questions I
got in the emails for last night's form was wonderful. But one wanted to
know what you were going to do about the border. And I don't think
that. I don't think the commissioners really have too much that you can do
now, unless they meant that bringing back the old taco bell and make a
run for the border. Maybe that's that may have been I'm not sure,
but yeah, we can't do anything about that. But what we can do
is listen when when you have a concern about a gravel road that you live
on. A good question. But that was a great question, it really
was, because that's going to happen to any of the three who are running,
who are elected. They're going to get a phone call that says,
hey, my gravel road it is terrible, it's got potholes, or it
doesn't have gravel or And yeah, that was a great question. Well,
once again, being a county commissioner is more than roads and bridges. But
that's what people see and that is their perception. And like you outline,
it's about being a manager, it's about being fiscally responsible, it's about putting
the right people at the right jobs. Absolutely, Yeah, how can people
find out more about you? So on Facebook? I have a campaign Facebook
page call It's call off for County Commissioner, so you can go find more
out about me there, consistently updating that page. In fact, that page
has last night's forum on it does, so thank you. Yeah, we've
shared that on there and want anyone to go and watch the forum from last
night. If you didn't get a chance to watch or listen, go and
be informed. So yeah, go out there, and you could message me
on there as well. Happy to answer any questions. You know, we're
on the final stretch. Early voting starts tomorrow. They do you got any
more signs left? I did on my way here. I stopped by because
someone had requested a sign, and I put a sign in the yard early
this morning, So no, sir, Yeah, that was one of the
questions as well. I do not have a sign in a right of way.
I have signs when someone has asked me to put a sign at their
house or I have asked permission to put a sign at their house or business.
That's where my signs can be found. And you've got a tracking mechanism.
We know where they're all. I've got a spreadsheet that tells me exactly
where every one of the signs are. Very good. You're accountable. You
have to be. You absolutely have to be. You're going to do this,
you have to be. Michael Cole has been just a pleasure. Thank
you, thank you very much.